


Where the Wild Things Are

by mific



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, First Time, M/M, McShep Match Challenge 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-27
Updated: 2011-09-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 02:24:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/257857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes you only realized later that an experience had been one of the highpoints of your life, but this time he knew. Tonight was going to be up there with his Nobel ceremony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Wild Things Are

**Author's Note:**

> A teenage first-time fic, pre-canon. Huge thanks to [kisahawklin](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin) for beta help. Any errors that remain are entirely mine.  
> I warned for underage but they're both the same age and it's all consensual.
> 
> Written for the 2011 Mcshep_Match, Team Sheppard. Prompt: The Last Straw.

 

Even at the age of fifteen, Rodney McKay was good at taming things. Pet mice, the family's bad-tempered tomcat back in Vancouver, quantum physics, they all responded to his endless need to know. So when he stumbled across the wild boy in the woods, he was mostly curious.

It had been a very tedious vacation up until then, trapped with his parents and Jeannie in a cabin by the lake while his father drafted a research proposal and his mother chain-smoked and muttered over physics journals, arguing with the authors through angry slashes of red pen. Jeannie had befriended a pair of skinny, tongue-tied twins from a cabin further along the lakefront and was gone for hours, bullying her acolytes into games starring cabbage patch dolls, her latest obsession.

Rodney lay on his bed in the heat and read, and fixed himself lunches of pop-tarts and Mac and Cheese because clearly no one else in the family cared if he died of hypoglycemia. The tense, angry war of attrition between his parents drove him out into the trees in the afternoons – anything to escape the haze of cigarette smoke and unvoiced accusations. They’d been voiced often enough until, finally, his parents’ marriage guidance counsellor prescribed this vacation. Rodney had heard all he wanted about his father's alleged infidelities, his mother's inadequacy as a homemaker. He was, after all, often cited as the main case in point – badly behaved and ungrateful because his mother never, because his father always.

It was shady, but no cooler, in the woods. The path was dry and he scuffled his sandals aimlessly as he wandered along, raising puffs of dust, t-shirt already damp with sweat and clinging to his back. He’d headed inland away from the lake, searching for a rocky outcrop he'd glimpsed the day before when he'd screwed up his courage and swum right out to a raft tethered in the middle of the lake. The water had been dark green where shafts of sunlight slid into the murky depths, and after one quick look he'd kept his head out of the water and tried not to think what might be down there. Not whales, there couldn't be whales in a small, freshwater lake. Rodney was a genius but this thing with whales wasn't rational – entirely his father's fault for imposing Moby Dick on his five year old son as a bedtime story. He hadn't been able to force himself back into the water to swim for shore until shadows were lengthening and only his mother's likely fury at him missing dinner outweighed the perils of the deep.

Rodney shivered. Even here, safe on dry land, the memory of all that unknown darkness beneath him made his heart race. It was strange that the depths of space had quite the opposite effect. He often imagined himself in a space-suit floating weightless as the blue and white Earth curved away far beneath him, or staring out his ship's window at nebulas clustered thick as spilled sugar in the heart of the galaxy. Not that he'd ever get into the space program, genius though he was. They only took Air Force jocks, not Canadian teenagers, no matter how brilliant.

The path petered out but Rodney could feel the terrain getting steeper and he began to climb, pulling himself up between rocks and gnarled shrubs as the trees thinned. Maybe he could climb to the top and look out across the forest, beating his chest and pretending to be Tarzan? Not that he was especially keen on Tarzan; there were far too many apes around as it was and he'd been bullied by his share across the years.

He rounded a rock shaped vaguely like a Saturn V rocket, and pulled up short. There was a cave, just a fissure between the rocks, but easily wide enough for a man to enter. _Or a bear,_ he thought nervously. There weren’t supposed to be bears around here though – too close to the town, his father had said, scoffing at his mother’s fears. And bears didn’t generally make campfires or hang sneakers up to dry on a makeshift line. He moved closer. Wood stacked to one side, a log dragged over near the ashes of the fire, and the narrow, grubby sneakers were only one size larger than he wore himself. A kid or a woman.

“Hi.” The voice behind him was soft, almost questioning.

Rodney wheeled, gratified to find he was right: it was a kid. A boy about his own age, skinny and tan, with a shock of dark hair. He was wearing faded board shorts and an old, ripped t-shirt that might have been black once, and he had flip-flops on his dirty, long-toed feet. “Ha!” said Rodney. “I _knew_ you weren’t a bear.”

The boy raised one eyebrow. “You were looking for a bear?”

“No, no, no,” Rodney said, waving his hand dismissively, “of course not! Mind you, with _that_ hair I’d have every right to be mistaken.”

The boy touched his hair and grimaced. “Don’t exactly have a shower up here y’know. I swim when I can, after dark when everyone’s gone inside.” His voice had a drawl that Rodney couldn’t quite place. Not that he was Henry Higgins where accents were concerned; he had far more important things to focus his formidable intellect on. But evidence was evidence, and his brain automatically analysed and categorized everything it encountered. This boy wasn’t easy to decipher.

“You’re camping up here?” Rodney asked, turning to peer into the cave.

The boy moved fast – suddenly he was leaning there on the rock face, arms crossed, blocking Rodney from entering. “Maybe.” His eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing, sheesh, you’re as territorial as a bear even if you’re”– he cast a quick glance up and down the boy–“not quite as hairy.” Weirdly, the kid flushed, his ears going pink. He uncrossed his arms, looking sheepish and gangly, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I. Sorry. I’m just.” He took a breath. “Kinda not supposed to be here.” He looked sharply at Rodney. “You won’t tell, right?”

“Tell _who?_ ” Rodney said. “You think I’m going to turn you in to the Ranger? For camping?” His eyes widened. “Oh, wait, are you an escaped criminal? You didn’t, like, murder your entire family or, or burn something down?” Rodney took an involuntary step back, heart racing, and tripped on a rock. He teetered, flailing.

The boy grabbed his arm and steadied him. “Jeez, calm down, I’m not an axe murderer. You’ve been watching way too many horror movies.”

“Yes, well, I’ll grant you that,” muttered Rodney grudgingly, feeling a bit embarrassed. The boy was still holding his arm and peering at him like he was scared Rodney was going to go berserk. “You can let go, I’m not going to do anything weird.”

“That’ll be a first, then,” the boy muttered, but he let go.

Rodney poked out his tongue and the boy laughed, a loud bray, too big and deep for his skinny frame. “What’s your name?” asked Rodney, fed up with thinking of him as “the boy”.

“John,” said the boy.

“I’m Rodney.” Rodney stuck his hand out politely but the boy– _John_ –just stared at him with a smirk on his irritatingly attractive face and one eyebrow raised. Not that Rodney noticed guys. Much. And anyway, he wasn’t even blond.

“Riiiight,” John drawled, finally taking Rodney’s outstretched hand like a civilised person and shaking it firmly. His hand was warm and dry and Rodney might have held onto it a beat too long, but really, he could care less about pointless social nuances. John cocked his head, still smirking: “Say ‘about’.”

“What?” snapped Rodney. Evidently the boy–John–was a few planets short of a solar system. “Why?”

“Go on, just say it,” John said, grinning.

“…About…” said Rodney, doubtfully.

“Yeah, it figures, you’re Canadian!”

“No, really, it took you _how_ long to figure that out?” Rodney snorted derisively. “You should be in Mensa.”

John glowered. “I could be, if it wasn’t _stupid._ ”

“Seriously doubt that,” retorted Rodney. Okay, 137.”

“137 what?” asked John, eyebrows furrowed.

“137? Prime or not prime? You have heard of prime numbers, I take it?”

John rolled his eyes. “Prime. 1699?”

“Prime. Ha. 8191?”

John grinned, triumphant. “Mersenne prime.”

“Hmmm.” Rodney glared at him, eyes narrowed. “Maybe you’re not a complete moron.” John scowled. “No, that’s a compliment, coming from me, because I’m a genius.”

“Sure you are, buddy,” drawled John, cheeks dimpling up in that smirk again.

Rodney wanted to wipe it off his face, to grab John and just, just…damn. He must be hypoglycemic, it was the only explanation, and it _had_ been some time since lunch. He patted his jeans’ pockets and pulled out a soft, squashy Hershey Bar. Opening the wrapper carefully, Rodney pulled off half the chocolate and swallowed it, picking up the rest and offering it to John. “I have to keep my blood sugar up,” he explained defensively.

“Yeah, with that giant brain and all,” said John, grinning. “Um, it’s pretty melted,” and before Rodney could stop him he was eating the gooey chocolate right out of Rodney’s hand. Paralysed by incredulity and feeling bizarrely like St Francis of Assisi feeding a wild animal, Rodney stood there, letting John lick the melted candy from his hand. And no one could be expected to cope with that; he wasn’t made of steel. His face was bright red and John was bent over his hand sucking his fingers and he had to be able to see that Rodney had the boner to end all boners and it was so damned unfair because he liked John and this was going to ruin it all, to ruin–

“Hey, buddy, calm down, you’re hyperventilating.”

John got him sitting in the shade of the rocks, made him slow down his breathing and put his head between his knees. And of course, Rodney realized, it was most likely heat stroke. He was delirious, that explained it all. He was unwell, so it was only to be expected that John’s hand on his shoulder or the back of his neck felt bizarrely good; it was only natural.

John sat down beside him in the narrow strip of shade. Rodney let his head rest back against the rock and shut his eyes. “Sorry, I probably got overheated. I use sun-cream but that doesn’t protect you from the infra-red, just UV rays.”

“You’re pretty worried about your health,” commented John.

“Well, I have allergies, and, and very fair skin. I have to be careful,” Rodney said, lifting his chin a little.

John shrugged. “Okay.”

“What do you eat, all the way up here?” Rodney asked, to change the subject.

“I catch some fish, even snared a rabbit the other day. And I’ve got dried food stashed in the cave,” said John. He grinned. “No candy, though, that ran out.”

“Yes, I could see you were enjoying it,” said Rodney, wiping his slightly sticky hand on his jeans. “You’ve been up here a while, then?”

“Yeah,” said John. “Couple of weeks. It’s okay, ‘cept for the no shampoo or candy.”

“I can get that for you,” blurted Rodney, then flushed and looked away.

“Yeah?” John sounded wary but hopeful. “You won’t tell your folks about me?”

“God, no. The less my parents or Jeannie know about my life, the better.”

“Jeannie’s your sister?” Rodney squinted across at him and John flushed and looked down at his hands, draped on his knees. “It’s kinda boring here, so I’ve been scouting. Checking out the neighbourhood without being seen, like I’m a spy or something. I, ah, saw you with your family once or twice.”

“Yes, we’re here so my parents can drive each other insane in a confined space in the name of therapy.” John quirked an eyebrow. “Believe me, you don’t want to know. _I_ don’t want to know, but I don’t have much choice until I’m sixteen.”

“What happens then?”

“I’ll go away to college, preferably as far from them as I can manage.”

“That bad, huh? What about your sister?”

“They’re not so hard on her,” said Rodney, picking at the frayed seam on his jeans and ignoring a pang of guilt. “I catch most of it because I’m the eldest.”

“Yeah,” said John softly, “me too. My little brother, Dave, he’s Dad’s favorite. I can't seem to do anything right." He pulled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "I don't care, Dad can get fucked."

Rodney sucked in a breath, slightly shocked, and looked away. He'd yelled at his parents plenty of times and called them names in his head, but never out loud. There'd been something cold in John's voice, something unforgiving. He frowned. "Is that why? Um, did you run away?"

John shrugged, then scrambled to his feet. He stuck out a hand to help Rodney. "C'mon, you better get back before your folks miss you."

"Like I care," muttered Rodney, but he let himself be pulled up anyway. "I'll get you some shampoo and candy. See you tomorrow? After lunch?"

"Yeah, okay…thanks," said John, pretending indifference, but when Rodney reached the edge of the trees and turned to wave, John was still watching.

\------o0o------

  
They fell into a pattern, meeting up at the cave every afternoon. One day John ambushed Rodney half-way along the path and tackled him into the long grass.

"Let me up, you idiot! What if there'd been poison ivy?"

"Well, there's not, is there?"

"Or spiders"

" _Spiders?_ Where?"

"Ha, got you!"

John took Rodney on long meandering treks through the woods, showing him things he'd discovered like a ruined shack with only the chimney left standing, and a fallen log across one of the streams flowing into the lake. They used torn-off saplings for lightsaber battles while balancing on the log, arguing about who should be Darth Vader.

"You're obviously a Sith Lord, look at your hair!"

"Yeah, but you breathe like him, Rodney."

"I have allergies!"

Sometimes they lay in dappled shade in the grass and talked about comics and which superpower they'd like to have, or movies like _Friday the 13th_ (too chillingly similar to the lake and woods around them for Rodney's comfort, but John loved it), _The Empire Strikes Back_ and _Superman II_ , which was totally better than the original.

John persuaded Rodney to slip out and join him at the lake one night after everyone had gone to sleep. Luckily, Jeannie had commandeered the tiny back bedroom so Rodney was bunking down on the sofa. He was able to creep out holding his sneakers, wincing as he hit a creaking floorboard near the door to his parents' room from which snoring emanated. Rodney picked his way down the path to the lake to find John waiting, slouched against the sign about boating regulations. They sat at the end of the pier and swung their legs, eating a packet of Oreos Rodney had liberated. A waxing moon cast a path of silver across the black water and made the pale filling in the Oreos glow, the biscuits flanking it invisible in the dark.

"I," said Rodney through a mouthful of chocolate crumbs, "am going to revolutionize the world of physics and win the Nobel Prize before I'm thirty."

"Yeah?" John sounded impressed and only mildly amused. "Me, I wanna join the Air Force and fly jets. Fighters, and maybe helicopters, too."

"They're just going to send you to morally dubious conflicts like El Salvador and Lebanon, you know," observed Rodney, remembering arguments in which his parents' friends had jabbed cigarettes at each other across the dinner table back in Vancouver.

"Not if I'm testing experimental fighters," said John, flicking a pebble into the lake.

Rodney hummed doubtfully. "Only the real aces get to do that; you'd have to be the best of the best."

"Reckon so," said John, managing to look both smug and stubborn. His face fell. "But I've got to get in, first, and Dad's not gonna let me apply."

"What? He can't stop you if your grades are good enough," protested Rodney, who clung to the power of brilliant grades as the solution to all his problems.

John sighed. "Dad owns a company. He wants me to do business management at college, then follow in his footsteps. He's got a lot of political clout: I'm not sure I can get a congressman or senator to nominate me for the Air Force Academy if he interferes."

"Why you want to be part of a military-industrial complex where nepotism's written into the ground rules is beyond me!" Rodney expostulated, waving his Oreo for emphasis.

"Flying. Fighter. Jets," repeated John pointedly. "Anyway, how're you planning to get funding for all your brilliant science, huh? Bet you're not so down on the military-industrial complex _then_ , Rodney." John smirked. "You'll probably be _making_ the bombs I'm supposed to be dropping."

"Ah, I already made one, actually," Rodney admitted. "Just a non-working model of a nuclear bomb for my sixth grade science project."

"You what?" John elbowed Rodney in the side. "No way, you're totally putting me on!"

"Ow, stop that, and I most certainly am not! My parents grounded me for a month and I was questioned by some jackasses from the CIA. But it was a _non-working_ model. Complete over-reaction – I mean, where's a twelve-year-old kid going to get plutonium?"

"I dunno, Rodney," John said thoughtfully. "But if anyone could, I guess it'd be you."

"Yes, well…" Rodney couldn't suppress a pleased smile. They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Rodney's curiosity got the better of him. "So is that why you ran away? Because your dad's not going to let you join the Air Force?"

"What?" John shot him a sidelong glance. His shoulders hunched and he gripped the planks on either side of his thighs. "No. Well, maybe that's part of it. It's just…." He sighed. "My mom died two years ago. She had cancer. Dad's been even worse since then, always on my back." He picked at a splinter in the decking. "He's away a lot, though, with the company. Probably just as well."

"I'm sorry," said Rodney, feeling shitty for prying. He could hear the pain in John's voice.

John shrugged. "'s okay. It's just the way it is. Then a month ago, he turned up to take Dave and me on this trip. He'd rented a vacation place across the other side of the valley. More of a hunting lodge, I guess you'd call it."

"Sounds a bit more spacious than the shack my parents got for us," Rodney muttered.

"Yeah, well, he likes to be ostentatious and there's the entourage as well." At Rodney's raised eyebrow he explained. "Housekeeper, chef, driver, security guards, the whole nine yards."

"So, what, you couldn't stand the luxury? You wanted a Spartan retreat in the woods?" Rodney asked, tilting his head to see John's face.

"Nah, not so much. I've lived in places like that all my life, 'cept when I'm away at boarding school. No, it wasn't the place so much as who he brought with him." John's voice hardened. "He brought this blonde half his age. Mandy, his girlfriend. First I'd heard about a girlfriend, and she's only ten years older than me. It's disgusting. She was all over him, all kissy kissy and, and touching his hair, and he totally let her." He dropped his head, hiding his face. "It's like Mom never existed, like he's just forgotten her. It was the last fucking straw."

His voice cracked a little and Rodney ached for him. He wondered if John would let him put an arm around his shoulders, but John was hunched, body language closed and defensive. Rodney had read a book about body language, hoping it would help him pick up girls; it hadn't. Feeling like he was risking everything, Rodney put his hand on John's where it gripped the edge of the pier, white knuckled. He slid their fingers together and John's arm tensed, then he turned his hand and took Rodney's, gripping it tight, almost painfully. Rodney bit his lip and managed not to wince, and after a moment John relaxed. He kept hold of Rodney's hand, though.

They sat for a while, then John drew his hand back and grabbed the bottom of his t-shirt, pulling it up and over his head. "I'm gonna take a dip. You want a swim?"

"I, I, um." Rodney stared at John's chest, collar bones and shoulders catching the moonlight, the faint shape of a nipple. He swallowed and pulled his eyes away. "It's very dark." He peered down into the inky water.

"Yeah, best for me. Means no one's likely to see. And it's not all that cold – I go swimming most nights."

"I think, er, I think I'll give it a miss," Rodney said. "I swam earlier." Well, he'd stood in the shallows and supervised Jeannie, on his mother's insistence. But he'd had a shower, back at the cabin.

"Suit yourself." John stood and rummaged in a battered rucksack, finding the bottle of shampoo Rodney had bought him at the general store further down the lake. He handed it to Rodney. "Hold this, okay? You can throw it down to me when I'm in."

"Yes, I can certainly–" Rodney agreed, taking the shampoo, then his train of thought derailed as John shucked off his shorts and kicked them aside. He wasn't wearing any underwear. John turned, balanced on the edge of the pier and dived in neatly, cleaving the surface with barely a splash. Rodney was briefly incapable of coherent thought, his mind replaying snapshots of lean muscled thighs, hairy calves and bare, long-toed feet gripping the decking. Blinking replaced these with even more distracting images of John's pale ass tensing as he dived, his outstretched arms and dark head slicing into the water like a pen dipping into an inkpot.

"Right," said Rodney, a little dazed. He stared unseeing at the water, then realized John hadn't surfaced. "John?" Rodney stage-whispered, keeping his voice low so it wouldn't carry far. "Are you there? John?" He stood, still clutching the plastic bottle, and stared into the darkness, then scrambled back along the pier peering down from both sides. "John!" he hissed, "Where the fuck are you? Damn it, John!"

A short story by some guy called Stephen King that Rodney had read in one of his father's soft porn magazines flooded into his mind. In it an alien monster that lived in a lake had eaten four teenagers trapped on a raft, absorbing them into itself one by one. It had even sucked one guy down through a crack in the planks of the decking. It was the main reason he'd nearly been stranded on the raft a while ago, frightened to swim back.

"Reading too much science fiction," he muttered feverishly. "No such things as alien monsters." The lake was a black, rippling mass, and John had disappeared and had probably hit his head and was drowning right this minute, because he was a foolhardy idiot. "Fuck, fuck!" Rodney dropped the shampoo and hopped on one foot, pulling off his shirt and jeans and kicking down his briefs. He teetered at the edge of the boards and took a deep breath, whimpered a little, then jumped. Blackness closed over his head and he panicked, breathing in water as he fought his way to the unseen surface. It was cold – John had totally lied about _that_ – and he was coughing and struggling when the alien wrapped a tentacle around his arm.

"Ow, fuck," said the alien, immobilizing Rodney in a lifesaving hold until he'd stopped struggling. "Quit it, Rodney, I've got you, you're okay." He floated easily, Rodney pulled against him and John's arm around his chest. John.

"You're not drowned," croaked Rodney, then coughed again. "You disappeared. I thought you were drowning."

"Jeez, Rodney, I just swam out to the raft; it's not far. I like swimming; we used to live in California and I got to go surfing. I'm a pretty good swimmer." They floated some more, Rodney very aware of the feel of John's chest against his back, the press of his arm. "Why'd you jump in if you can't swim? I thought you weren't going to?"

"Can so swim," Rodney whispered, voice hoarse. "I just. Not at night, before. M'not good with being closed in and I couldn't see, under the water. Panicked."

"Yeah, it is a little weird. You gonna be able to climb up now?" John had maneuvered them over to the pier, by one of the wooden piles. "Here's the ladder, that's right, get your foot on it and grab that rung. There you go." Rodney hauled himself up, wheezing a little, his throat raw. John set a hand on his ass and pushed. Rodney yelped in surprise, his skin tingling as though John's handprint was a brand. He scrambled up the rest of the way, John chuckling below him.

"Bastard," muttered Rodney, rubbing his arms and shivering.

"Hey, throw me down that shampoo, would ya?" John called, splashing in the water below.

Rodney felt about for the bottle he'd discarded earlier, fighting the urge to cover his privates because John had already seen his ass for Christ's sake. Anyway, it was very dark, the moon almost set. He dropped the shampoo down to John and sat on the deck, lying down to pull his jeans on over still-damp legs. Then he dangled his legs off the pier again, catching the bottle when John lobbed it back with a quarterback's arm. John began lathering his hair, treading water. Rodney kept a close eye on him this time, but apart from a brief disappearance to rinse off he stayed in sight, bobbing on the surface, then clambered up the ladder in his turn. He dried himself roughly with his t-shirt then pulled on his shorts and sat down beside Rodney.

"You okay now?" John asked, squinting at Rodney and scrubbing a hand through his hair, which was standing up in spikes from the quick towelling.

"Yeah, thanks. For rescuing me. Sorry, I thought I was rescuing you."

John grinned. "Hey, thanks yourself. We can take turns, right? At rescuing each other."

"Yeah, okay." Rodney kicked his feet. "It was just so dark, and I've got this thing about whales. And life-sucking alien monsters that live in lakes."

"Whales," said John, eyebrows up near his hairline. "Uh huh. And alien monsters as well, the whole package."

"I can't help it if I have an overactive imagination," Rodney grumbled. "It's the price I pay for being a genius."

"Sure it is, buddy," said John. Their legs were pressed together warm and damp from thigh to calf, John's shoulder leaning solid against Rodney's. He reached over and took Rodney's hand again, threading their fingers together. "Took some nerve to jump in, then, what with whales and monsters, and all."

"Well," Rodney said, mouth suddenly dry. "I was, um. I was worried."

"About me," said John quietly, breath warm on Rodney's ear. "You were worried about me."

"Yes," whispered Rodney, but it was the answer to quite another question, so he shut his eyes and turned his head. John's hand came up to touch his cheek and their noses got in the way, then John angled his head a little more and pressed his lips to Rodney's. His mouth was soft and cool, and Rodney couldn't move for a moment, then he kissed back, his lips opening against John's.

They necked for what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes. Mostly with their mouths closed, although John, greatly daring, slipped him a little tongue before pulling back, licking his lips, pupils blown black in the starlight. Rodney drew him in again and kissed around his ear – licking it made John writhe. The sound of their breathing was loud in the still night. John made soft noises in his throat, almost whimpers. They maddened Rodney and forced him to suck on John's neck. His back was twisted a little awkwardly and was starting to ache, but he didn't care.

"Gave you a hickey," murmured Rodney, pressing on the bruise he'd left below the angle of John's jaw.

John shivered. "Be okay. No one's gonna see it in the woods."

As if on cue, a vacationer two cabins along the lake came out onto his front porch and took a leak over the side of the veranda into some bushes. John gripped Rodney tight, covering his mouth as they froze in place, breathing shallowly until he went back inside, screen door thudding behind him.

Rodney pulled away from John's hand as soon as they were alone again. "You had to asphyxiate me?"

"Sorry. Didn't want to say anything – sound carries across water." John gave him an apologetic kiss.

Rodney pretended to be irritated but in fact he'd liked being held, immobilised. It had felt restful, which was weird.

They gathered their things and crept back along the path to Rodney's cabin. John pressed Rodney against the wall in the shadow of the porch and kissed him, open-mouthed. Rodney was hard and he could feel John's cock trapped against his thigh, but he didn't say anything, didn't know what to say. John pulled away.

"Tomorrow, after lunch," gasped Rodney.

"Yeah," said John, his voice ragged. He turned, vanishing into the trees.

Rodney leaned against the wall, touching his mouth, feeling dazed and impossibly turned on. He couldn't go back inside like this. He spat into his hand and shoved it down his jeans, grabbing his cock with a sigh of relief. His head fell back against the plank wall, and he closed his eyes and remembered John's lips, the taste of his neck. He came after only a few strokes, remembering John's arms wrapped around him, John's hand across his mouth.

\------o0o------

  
"Why aren't there search parties out for you?" Rodney asked. "I mean, with your dad such a VIP and all?"

They were straddling the fallen log, facing each other. John had wanted to try a mock sword-fight but they'd given up on that and were back to necking. Rodney's lips were getting pretty chapped, but he'd said it was sunburn and other than having to endure a lecture from his mother on the damaging effects of UV rays, had gotten away with it.

"I called the hunting lodge a couple of days after I got here. There's a payphone at a general store in the next town; I hiked over. Told the housekeeper I was fine, that I'd hitched a ride and was staying with a friend in the city. Hung up on her when she started asking questions." He shrugged and scrambled up. "C'mon, my butt's sore, let's find some grass to sit on."

"Oh, thank _Christ_ , I think I got a twig up my ass," muttered Rodney, following him off the far end of the log where there was a patch of long grass between other fallen trunks.

John pulled him down and lay on top of him. "Yeah?" John grinned wickedly. "You got something up your ass, Rodney?"

Rodney blushed. "No, I just–" Then he was letting John roll them, kissing him and cupping his ass, pulling his leg up over John's hip and pushing his groin against Rodney's. Even through their jeans it was electrifying, hot and good and Rodney groaned, arching into John, sliding his hands around John's waist, up under his shirt. John's skin was smooth and hot, and John's mouth was slick and oh god that was his _tongue_ and it was kind of gross, but also very hot.

John was sucking on Rodney's tongue and licking into his mouth and his hands were gripping Rodney's ass and their cocks were rubbing and it was good, oh god, so good, and Rodney moaned and clutched John tighter and came. John was mouthing his neck and almost in serious breach of the "no hickies on Rodney" rule, so Rodney held him back, hands on either side of his face, but before he could kiss him again, John's mouth went slack, and he shuddered against Rodney, eyes rolling up as his hips jerked.

"Oh, wow," said Rodney. "You just came."

John opened one eye; he was panting. "So did you." He seemed mildly peeved.

"Yes, yes, it was great. But I mean, god. I made you _come!_ " Rodney couldn't keep a happy grin from spreading across his face. "You _came_ on me!"

"Lunatic," muttered John, kissing the corner of his mouth. He curled around Rodney, burrowing in. "Wake me up when you're less crazy."

Rodney stroked his back, smiling, staring up at bright green leaves and patches of blue sky. After a while, he dozed too, cheek pressed to John's messy hair.

John woke first, stretching then grimacing. "Ow, yuck," he muttered. "Jeans are totally stuck to me."

Rodney lifted his head, knuckled sleep out of his eyes. It was late afternoon, by the angle of the sun. "We should wash. Maybe I can sneak a bucket of water from the cabin?"

"Nah, I got a better idea," said John. "C'mon." And he led Rodney through the trees, well away from the cabins, to where a stream flowed into the lake. There was a pool, mostly screened from the water skiers out on the lake by some bushes. It wasn't more than waist-deep, but good enough for washing. John stripped off and Rodney followed with only a little hesitation. The water was cool, but pleasant in the heavy summer heat. John grabbed his rucksack and took the chance to wash his jeans and his hair, flicking suds at Rodney–"That better not be lemon-scented!"–and getting Rodney to wash his back. They tussled a little, slippery with soap, dunking each other and shaking their wet hair like dogs. John lost his footing and fell back against the muddy bank, on the outer curve of the stream where it cut into the earth. The water swirled around his knees.

"Ha!" said Rodney, splashing over and pinning his hands against the bank, "Got you!"

"Yeah," said John, breathless. "Watcha gonna do with me?" He licked his lips.

The last rays of the sun slanted down through a gap in the canopy to catch this bank of the stream. Rodney stared at the drops of water clinging to John's chest. He was slender, like Rodney. Not built, but with nice muscle definition. Rodney let go of John's wrist and slid his hand down his arm and across his chest. He ran his thumb around John's nipple, curious. John gasped. Rodney leaned in and sucked, with very gratifying results. He continued to lick and suck as he slid his hand down John's stomach, onto his thigh and then back up to cup his balls. John made a high-pitched noise and his free hand clawed at the muddy bank, fingers digging in.

Rodney closed his hand around John's cock and John gasped and buried his face in Rodney's shoulder. He was grasping John's cock like a hockey stick at first, but that was too awkward so he shifted his grip, fisting the base the same way he jerked himself off. John was panting, thrusting his cock into Rodney's grip, and it was wet, but there was too much friction. The shampoo bottle had washed up on the muddy bank, so Rodney let go of John and grabbed it. John whimpered, twitching his hips up in protest.

"Wait, wait let me–" panted Rodney, fumbling with the cap until he had a palmful of shampoo. He tossed the bottle up into the grass and closed his fingers around John's cock again. This time it worked well, his hand sliding slick over hot, silky skin, even if the foam looked weird. Rodney made his fist looser and let John fuck into it. John grunted, and warm wetness spilled over Rodney's hand. He grabbed his own cock and beat off frantically, moaning at the thought that it was John's come slicking his hand, John's thigh between his legs. It didn't take long.

Rodney had to shampoo the mud out of John's hair after that, and they sluiced off, then pulled on damp clothes. They found a place to sit between the roots of some nameless tall tree, botany not being a subject that interested Rodney in the slightest. John leaned back against the trunk with Rodney between his legs, his arms around Rodney's waist.

"You ever done it?" John asked, chin on his shoulder.

"What? Sex? We just did," said Rodney, craning back to try and see John's face.

"Yeah," said John, avoiding eye contact, "but I mean, y'know…fucking."

"Oh. Um, well, no, not yet. I. This is the first…"

"I'm your first?" John sounded pleased.

"Well, yes? There was April Bingham, but all we did was neck, _and_ she gave me mono, so I think that disqualifies her."

"You like girls too?"

Rodney wished that he could see John's face. "Yes? I mean, obviously I haven't had much experience, but I look at girls a lot. Um, breasts are nice, and I like blondes." He trailed off. "Er, and guys, too. I look at guys as well."

"Blondes?" John sounded incredulous. "You like blondes?"

"Well, obviously not _just_ blondes," huffed Rodney, wriggling out of John's arms to turn and face him. John was actually, honest to god, pouting. "I also like skinny guys with crazy hair who live in caves. As it turns out." He sat between John's thighs and wrapped his own legs around him, crossing his feet in the small of John's back and pulling him in for a kiss. John put up token resistance, then kissed him back.

"What about you," Rodney asked. "You into girls as well?"

"Nah, not really. They keep trying to flirt with me, and one or two are okay, but it's mostly guys that I've kissed, and…done stuff with."

Rodney fought down a surge of jealousy. "What sort of stuff?"

"Just hand-jobs, jacking each other, you know." His ears had flushed pink.

"You know you're not going to be able to do…this sort of thing," said Rodney carefully, unwilling to use the gay word since John hadn't, "when you're in the Air Force? They'll put you up against the wall and shoot you if they catch you."

John snorted. "Yeah, no. Court-martial me, more like." He brushed a leaf out of Rodney's hair. "I'll just have to be careful. It's worth it, to fly."

"I don't know," Rodney said doubtfully, "it's a big thing about yourself to have to keep hidden. I'm not sure I could do it."

"Yeah, with your mouth that might be kind of a problem," said John, and kissed Rodney before he could splutter out a protest. He drew back and leaned his forehead on Rodney's. "What if hiding it was the only way you could get your physics grants and win that Nobel?"

"I can't believe there'll be irrational prejudices like that in the _scientific_ community," Rodney said dismissively. "But, hmmm, yes, I see what you mean. You're mostly, um, into guys, though, it’ll be harder on you."

"Guess I'll just have to tough it out," John said, wrestling Rodney down into the grass and straddling him. He grinned. "And make the most of it now, while I still can."

\------o0o------

  
Rodney had even less trouble sneaking out of the cabin now that he'd mapped out the worst of the creaking boards. He had candy and sodas in his bag, and he didn't turn his flashlight on until he was sure its light would be masked by tree trunks and underbrush. He stumbled a few times on the path up to John's cave, but every bend in the way was familiar by now, even in the dark, with the wavering beam of light.

It was their last night; Rodney was leaving the next day. He and John had only been together for two weeks, so how could so much have changed in such a short time? He'd known, John had known, that they wouldn't have much time. They weren't even from the same country, and Vancouver was miles away from Virginia. Not that Rodney was staying in Vancouver, but he needed to get into the best physics program in the United States, and that wasn't going to be in Colorado Springs, where the Air Force Academy was. If John got the nomination.

John met him at Rocket Rock, as they'd started calling it. He grabbed Rodney's hand and pulled him up the path, then in through the mouth of the cave.

"Wow." Rodney looked around. John had used up the remains of his candles, sticking stubs all over the rocky outcrops. A host of flames flickered, the rocks in the cave glittering and reflecting. "Mica," said Rodney. John raised his eyebrows. "In the rock – there's mica. It's what makes it sparkle."

"Pretty cool, huh?" said John, waggling his eyebrows in a completely ridiculous fashion.

"You," said Rodney, pushing John down into a nest of sleeping bags and clothes that formed the bed and sitting astride him, "are such a giant girl. Seriously, how are you going to survive military training? Won't be any sparkly décor in the barracks, you know. Or any of this." And he leaned down and kissed John soundly.

Some time later, Rodney surfaced from exploring John's mouth to find that he'd ended up underneath again. He grabbed John's ass and thrust up against his hip.

"Wait, wait, I want, we've got all night. Hang on, Rodney," John muttered. "Let me just." He pulled Rodney's t-shirt up, kissing his stomach, which whoa, ticklish. "Hmmm," said John. "Tempting, but I really wanna get naked with you, c'mon, help me get these off."

Rodney twisted and hauled off his shirt, flinging it aside, then kicked off his sneakers and scrabbled his jeans open. "You, too," he gasped. "Get them–" John kissed him sloppily, pushing down his board shorts one-handed; without them he was naked. He grabbed Rodney's jeans and dragged them off, taking his underwear with them.

Rodney lay on the rumpled bedding feeling wild and debauched. John knelt there, straddling his hips like something out of legend, a faun or a–what were those sex demons?–oh yeah, an incubus. Then again, he might have been reading too much soft porn sci-fi and fantasy. The candles cast flickering red-gold light across John's tan skin, his eyes were shadowed and his messy hair stood up in feral disarray, haloed by the flames behind him. Eros, thought Rodney. Not those blond, ringleted cupids in diapers; this was the real thing. He told himself to store this away, to carve it into memory. Sometimes you only realized later that an experience had been one of the highpoints of your life, but this time he knew. Tonight was going to be up there with his Nobel ceremony.

He raised his hand and touched the tip of John's cock, gently tracing the slit and the head's flared rim. John let his head fall back and arched into Rodney's hand, and Rodney cupped his ass cheeks and urged him forward until he could stretch out his tongue and–

"Rodney!" His name was torn from John's mouth as his tongue flicked across the head of John's cock, catching the bead of fluid that had mesmerised him.

"Huh?" Rodney asked, distracted, holding John's cock like an ice-cream and licking it. Salty and sharp. He thought he could get it in his mouth, if he pulled John just a little closer and breathed through his nose. He closed his lips around the head and looked up. John's face was stunned, almost pained, his chest heaving.

"Gonna, I'm gonna, oh god–" and John pulled his cock out of Rodney's startled mouth and jerked into his cupped hands, grunting helplessly. Something wet splashed Rodney's cheek and trickled into his ear.

"Ew, you got come in my ear!" Rodney complained.

John was slumped on top of him, trembling. He groped for a t-shirt and wiped his hands, then carefully cleaned Rodney's face. "Jesus, Rodney, fuck. You're lucky I didn't drown you with it. You could've warned me you were gonna do that!"

"It was a spur of the moment thing," protested Rodney. "Anyway, did you like it? Was it good?"

John had recovered himself. He leaned down and kissed Rodney, licking across his lips and into his mouth, and jesus, he was chasing his own taste, the taste of his cock. Oh boy, that was hot. "Yeah," said John, "yeah, Rodney, it was really, really good." And he slid down Rodney's body and showed him exactly how good it was.

Later, lying sprawled side by side on the makeshift bed, Rodney watched one of the candles gutter and snuff out. Only about half of them were still alight, but he could see the soft curve of John's lips and the dark fluttering shadow of his lashes. He ran his hand up John's side, where the indentations of his ribs were clearly palpable.

"You going to stay here or go back?"

John rolled his head and cracked an eye open. "Dunno. Probably go back pretty soon. Hopefully he's packed the trophy girlfriend off by now. Hell, he probably went back to the city himself, weeks ago." He turned his head away again, shutting his eyes. "He's a busy man."

"Have you told him?"

John didn't move, but he tensed slightly under Rodney's hand. "Told him what?"

"That you're," Rodney bit his lip. "That you're gay."

John barked out a laugh, and stared up into the dark recesses of the cave. "Yeah, because we have those sort of cozy chats all the time. What do _you_ think?"

"I think you should tell him." John made an irritated noise and moved restlessly under his hand. "No, listen. How's he going to react, when you do?"

"Assuming I can get him to believe me? He'll disown me." John rolled away, to lie on his side. "'No son of mine' and all that crap," he muttered bitterly.

Rodney propped himself up on one elbow and leaned over. John's arms were wrapped around his stomach, like he'd been kicked. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't. It's just I had a thought."

John rolled back again, facing Rodney but not making eye contact. "You had a thought," he said, his tone flat. "So tell me, what's your brilliant idea?"

"It's just," Rodney sat up and crossed his legs tailor-fashion. "What if he _did_ disown you, how would you live?"

"There's a trust fund, from my mom's estate. The lawyers'd have to give me an allowance if I left home. It wouldn't pay for boarding school, but I'd get by."

"Right, so you graduate first, then you tell him. No, wait," Rodney snapped his fingers and pointed at John. "You tell him, he disowns you, you move out and then–when you're, what, eighteen is it?–you apply to the Academy."

"After you turn seventeen, you can get in." John had sat up, legs crossed, mirroring Rodney.

"Okay, so that'd work. Would your father interfere with your nomination if you'd left home?"

"No, I don't think he would," John said slowly, brushing his hair back out of his eyes. "He's stubborn and he doesn't do things by halves; once he drops something, it's dropped. If I told him I was gay, if I made him believe it, it'd be the last straw. He'd wash his hands of me."

"It's quite a price to pay," Rodney said quietly.

"I already paid it," said John, "and if it gets him off my back so I can fly…"

\------o0o------

  
It was cool in the minutes before dawn, the only time of day that it ever really cooled down. They'd huddled under the sleeping bag until the jagged slash of the cave mouth turned faintly grey, and details around them began to emerge out of the darkness.

"I wish I didn't have to leave," said Rodney. Stupid, pointless thing to say, but there was so much he couldn't say, that John wouldn't want to hear.

"Yeah," said John, swallowing. "Me too. With the not leaving, I mean."

Rodney pulled him close. "Then you'd never get to fly, and I'd never get the Nobel prize." John sighed. "Plus, it'd be really cold in this cave, in winter." John snorted against his shoulder. "C'mon." Rodney clambered up, hauling John to his feet. They shivered, pulling on clothes and locating Rodney's bag and sneakers.

At Rocket Rock, John looked down, kicking his foot against the turf. "I probably won't write; I'm crap at writing."

Rodney tried to lighten the mood. "And yet here you are, planning a career in the American military. Who's going to do all your paperwork?"

John grinned and scrubbed a hand through his hair. "That's what underlings are for."

"Yeah, right," said Rodney, "because you'll be too busy being the big goddam hero?"

"That's the plan, yeah," said John, smirking. His face grew serious. "I, I'm no good at," he gestured vaguely, "this stuff."

"Talking?" prompted Rodney. "Feelings?"

John crossed his arms. "Yeah. You know, though? Right?"

"Yes, John, I know. Me too."

"Okay," said John, visibly relieved. "That's okay, then." He stepped forward, pulling Rodney into a tight, desperate hug. Muffled against Rodney's shoulder, he muttered "Y'know, if you _were_ gonna work for the military-industrial complex, we might see each other again."

Rodney grimaced and patted his arm awkwardly as they drew apart. "Yes, like I'm going to compromise my principles to _that_ degree. Sorry, John, not even for you." He picked up his bag and took one last look, fixing John's image in his mind, then he turned and walked away.

When Rodney reached the edge of the trees and turned to wave, John was still watching.

 _\- the end -_


End file.
